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Friday, April 24, 2015

Irish Rebels Seize Dublin Post Office in Easter Uprising, 1916

Flag of the Irish Citizens Army

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, an insurrection against
British rule in Ireland took
place in the capitol city of Dublin. Led by a collection of volunteer
organizations including the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Fein, the Irish
Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army, the armed uprising was planned for
months in advance. But the capture of
the German ship, the Aud, bringing guns for the rebels meant that “any chance
of a successful uprising disappeared,” wrote Irish historian Michael Kenny in The Road to Freedom, published by the
National Museum of Ireland.

An official British communication, published in The Boston Globe, read:

“At noon yesterday serious disturbances broke out in Dublin. A large party of men identified with the SF
party, mostly armed, occupied Stephen’s Green and took possession forcibly of
the Postoffice, where they cut the telegraph and telephonic wires. Houses were also occupied in Stephen’s Green,
Sackville Street,
Abbey Street
and along the quays. In the course of the day soldiers arrived from the Curragh
and the situation is now well in hand.”

But on April 28, the Globe reported that the revolt was
spreading outside of Dublin
and that martial law had been declared across the island. Subsequent reports
referred to the rebels as “traitors to Ireland,” but that sentiment
quickly changed when British General Maxwell executed the captured Irish
leaders on May 3, 1916.

In Boston,
the Irish community had already rallied against the British and saw the rebels
as heroes. In a speech in Pittsfield, MA
on May 1, 1916, Joseph O’Connell, ex-US Congressman from Boston, told a rally
organized by the Friends of Irish Freedom, "I glory in the brave spirits who defied the tyrant England, and I am
very proud that there are yet Irish in Ireland with the spirit of Wolfe Tone,
Emmett, Meagher, John Boyle O’Reilly and O’Connell...who dare to oppose the
despotic rule of England in Ireland.”

Later that summer, Nora Connolly, the daughter of Irish
rebel James Connolly, one of the executed leaders, came to Boston to “tell the true story of the Irish
uprising.” The 23 year old woman made a
great impression on the Boston
media and on the area’s large Irish community.

While in Boston Nora Connolly was the
guest of Mayor James M. Curley, who gave orders that “every courtesy possible
is extended to her while in Boston,”
wrote The Boston Globe. As she was
leaving City Hall, “the mayor handed her a substantial purse of money, the gift
of a few Friends of Irish Freedom, as the mayor put it.”